Nielsen: 61-39 to Coalition

GhostWhoVotes tweets that the first post-carbon tax announcement poll from Nielsen, presumably conducted between Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1400, has the Coalition’s lead out from 59-41 to 61-39. Further comment superfluous, but primary votes and leadership figures, and presumably also some attitudinal stuff, to follow.

UPDATE: After falling a point short of overtaking Julia Gillard in last month’s poll, Tony Abbott has rocketed to an 11-point lead as preferred prime minister, up five points to 51 per cent with Gillard down six to 40 per cent.

In results that will send waves of fear through the government, approval for Ms Gillard’s performance has tumbled another 3 points to 34 per cent, while her disapproval rating has jumped 3 to 62 per cent. The carbon plan has been given an unequivocal thumbs down, with 56 per cent of respondents opposed to a carbon price, 52 per cent rejecting the government’s carbon price and compensation package, and 53 per cent believing it will leave them worse off. More than half (56 per cent) say Ms Gillard has no mandate for her plan, and the same proportion want an early poll before the plan is introduced. Nearly half (47 per cent) think Bob Brown and the Greens are mainly responsible for the government’s package. More than half (52 per cent) say an Abbott government should repeal the package while 43 per cent believe it should be left in place under a new government. Ms Gillard yesterday denied she had been ringing around to gauge backbench support for her failing leadership.

The Coalition’s primary vote is up 2 points to 51 per cent, while the Greens’ is down 1 point to 11 per cent. Approval of Mr Abbott has risen a point to 47 per cent. His disapproval is down 2 points to 48 per cent … Ms Gillard’s approval rating is her worst so far and the lowest for a PM since Paul Keating’s 34 per cent in March 1995.

UPDATE (18/7/2011):Essential Research is kinder for the government, showing a slight improvement from last week’s worst-ever result for them: the Coalition’s lead is down from 57-43 to 56-44, with the Coalition down a point to 49 per cent, Labor up one to 31 per cent and the Greens steady on 11 per cent. Essential being a two-week rolling average, this was half conducted immediately before and half immediately after the carbon tax announcement, with the latter evidently having provided the better figures. I have noted in the past that, for whatever reason, Essential seems to get more favourable results for the carbon tax than phone pollsters: as well as being consistent with the voting intention findings (albeit not to the extent of statistical significance), the Essential survey also finds direct support for the carbon tax has increased since the announcement, with approval up four points to 39 per cent and disapproval down four to 49 per cent.

This raises at least the possibility that the phone polling methodology behind the recent Morgan and Nielsen results, as well as next week’s Newspoll, is skewed somewhat against the carbon tax – unless of course the internet-based Essential (or perhaps some other aspect of Essential’s methodology) is skewed in its favour. It should also be noted that Essential’s recovery only returns support to the level it was at in the June 14 survey, before a dive on July 11. For all that, respondents are just as pessimistic about their own prospects under the tax as were Morgan’s: 10 per cent say they will be better off against 69 per cent worse off, and 46 per cent believe it will be bad for Australia against 34 per cent good. Further questions inquire about respondent’s self-perceived level of knowledge about the tax, and their reactions about a range of responses to it.

Passing the carbon pricing legislation will change nothing in the public debate – after it actually comes into effect in 2012 then -maybe- things may change.

Until then the ALP has to play it slowly and surely. Sit tight, nothing hasty. The legislation itself has to be drafted very carefully and reviewed to within an inch of its life – there has to be no gotchas in it when it hits parliament.

Everything I have been trying to say is proving to be right. Time to stop the denial and start the thinking.

Sadly you and I are the lone voices in the wilderness on Poll Bludger – everyone else is hoping that the news of Rebecca Brooks’s arrest distracts people from Neilsen tomorrow.
Labor’s got themselves in a terrible bind – they really SHOULD change leaders, but to do so is an admission of defeat, and the one person who could rescue them would be lucky to get 10 votes in the caucus.
So I guess they’ll hang on to Julia for grim death until the next election, because the factional hard heads are too proud to admit they botched it in June 2010.

Question to all the eternal optimists here: When WILL the polls turn around for Gillard?
I’m sure I was told repeatedly by Gary and others that July 1 would signal the start of the great recovery, then it’d be the release of the Carbon Tax details!
How long do you all keep the faith? Until the next election?
What if Julia leads Labor to a crushing defeat in 2013?

If she’s done the right things for the country, it won’t matter. I still think they can turn around, no matter how bad they look now. My main concern is that they’ll continue the current narrative of:

Polls mean everything. (which of course is ironic after people railing against the Government being ‘poll-driven’. They try another approach and get hammered for it.)
Gillard is losing in the polls.
= Gillard is a bad Prime Minister.

The Government taking on so many vested interests isn’t helping either, but you know what? Better to get these polls out of the way now rather than later, and better to take them on rather than just cowardly seek their appeal to try and preserve your own grip on power.

Everything I have been trying to say is proving to be right. Time to stop the denial and start the thinking.

Sadly you and I are the lone voices in the wilderness on Poll Bludger – everyone else is hoping that the news of Rebecca Brooks’s arrest distracts people from Neilsen tomorrow.
Labor’s got themselves in a terrible bind – they really SHOULD change leaders, but to do so is an admission of defeat, and the one person who could rescue them would be lucky to get 10 votes in the caucus.
So I guess they’ll hang on to Julia for grim death until the next election, because the factional hard heads are too proud to admit they botched it in June 2010.

Any predictions on the primaries? Above or below 30? I’d have to say it would be more likely to be under again. That really is NSW territory.

As a prudent risk-management strategy I would be suggesting a flicking of the switch to progressive policies; of course after a suitably serious and measured government review of its policy priorities. Asylum seekers, gay marriage, the Murray – the whole schmeer.

I certainly wouldn’t be waiting for ‘the carbon tax implementation bounce’, or the ‘getting on with governing turnaround’. Something active has to happen. Business as usual will not do it.

UPDATE: After falling a point short of overtaking Julia Gillard in last month’s poll, Tony Abbott has rocketed to an 11-point lead as preferred prime minister, up five points to 51 per cent with Gillard down six to 40 per cent.

Of course the Carbon Tax will be passed into law – that’s only half of the problem for Labor.
Gillard just doesn’t have a connection with the Australian people, she really lacks the gravitas that a Prime Minister should possess.
I’m not sure if any more incarnations of “The Real Julia” will do the trick for her?

Can’t see a change in leader now. What would they say? They will still be implementing the exact same program, nothing else would be changing at all. Still think the PM will be leader in 2013. Nothing else to be done except get on with the job. In the meantime a lot can get done. You can legislate well when you’ve nothing else to lose. JV, I agree in a way, might as well go for broke on any good legislation proposed.

The carbon package was never going to be a vote winner in its own right (Brent Mumble said as much recdently), these polls will go on for a while.

As a prudent risk-management strategy I would be suggesting a flicking of the switch to progressive policies; of course after a suitably serious and measured government review of its policy priorities. Asylum seekers, gay marriage, the Murray – the whole schmeer.

The problem is that there’s already been so much work done to paint the government as in the thrall of the Greens, so this change would have to be done very carefully to avoid just ‘fufilling’ that more in the eyes of the broad public. (I do expect gay marriage to become ALP policy after the national conference in December though.) The other problem is that they’re already having enough trouble trying to convince voters via a good and logical argument out of ‘the carbon price is necessary for our future’, because its getting shouted out by appeals to selfishness.

TSOP, what’s he won? Is there a prize for being 2 years out an election, no way of blocking anything in the senate, watching the NBN and the Carbon Price being implemented, and being popular in the polls whilst in opposition?

UPDATE: After falling a point short of overtaking Julia Gillard in last month’s poll, Tony Abbott has rocketed to an 11-point lead as preferred prime minister, up five points to 51 per cent with Gillard down six to 40 per cent.

I have to say it does seem pretty clear that the release of details of the carbon price has had a negative bump for the government. I can’t put my finger on why. The details show the actual impact on most Australians to be very minor indeed. We’ve known the plan was being worked on for ages. I would have expected if people were upset about the ‘carbon tax lie’ or whatever that that would have been factored into the polls before now (and I thought this negative -had- been with the 45-55 polls, obviously I was wrong).

So why the additional negative bounce now, with the plan as released being quite a good plan, no individuals taking too much of a hit?

Is it that the Australian public is just too lily-livered chicken-shit cowardly that even the smallest change sends us into paroxysms of anxiety? What a bunch of cowards we are as a nation. Our leaders have been called pygmies but I’m afraid it’s just -us- as a nation that are moral and intellectual pygmies.

Very dispiriting. Well I’ll be right, I don’t plan on being alive much beyond 2050; someone else can deal with the impact of CC.

The denial is from those who think a leadership change will fix the polls.

My preference is to just keep on governing. Labor is kicking ass in parliament, so why not keep getting its legislative agenda passed.

Yep! As is well known, Gillard also has the security of knowing that the arrangements with the indies were specifically with her. Its a nice sort of job insurance, even if it wasn’t intended as such. So they should just get on with the job, as I’m sure they will. Its just a shame its so hard to expose the massive disconnect between Abbott’s position in the polls and how little his party actually succeeds in Parliament. What’s their biggest triumph there? Pyne being annoying? Abbott shouting a lot for the 18th suspension of standing orders this year? Not a great record by any means.

As for Evan’s appeal to ‘gravitas’ argument, it being repeated doesn’t make it any more convincing.

About this blog

William Bowe is a doctoral candidate with the University of Western Australia’s Discipline of Political Science and International Relations. He has been running the electoral studies blog The Poll Bludger since January 2004, independently until September 2008 and thereafter with Crikey.